The positioning of items, such as text, text and dialogue boxes, images, and the like, within an electronic document is currently achieved in one of a number of ways. This includes using the tab settings, specifying a position for the item, or simply arranging for the item to be displayed in a particular location.
The most popular method of locating items within documents is to use tab settings. The tab settings specify a modifiable position at which various items can be located. The tab settings specify the position as a distance from the left hand margin and are therefore absolute in character. Accordingly, if items are to be aligned in a vertical fashion, each item must have the same horizontal tab setting.
Alternatively, the actual position of an item within a page can also be specified by using horizontal and vertical advance settings. These similarly operate to position the item at a absolute specified position in the page.
Similarly, the item can be arranged to be displayed in a certain position, for example by using a suitable number of carriage returns and spaces to allow the item to be positioned as desired. However, all of the above systems suffer from the disadvantage that they position the items absolutely relative to the margins, and/or page edges. As a result, if it is desired to have a particular page arrangement, it is necessary to specify the position of each item absolutely. This results in a large number of complications should it be necessary to insert additional items at intermediate locations, or the like. Similarly, problems arise when documents are imported between software packages that utilize different tab setting scales. This can lead to the undesirable reformatting of documents when displayed on a different computer.